Shortly before going into hiding Anne had begun keeping
a diary. On June 20th, 1942, she wrote down what her
reasons were for doing so:

I can never bring
myself to talk of anything outside the common round.
We don't seem to be able to get any closer, that is
the root of the trouble. Hence, this diary. I don't
want to set down a series of bald facts in a diary
like most people do, but I want this diary itself to
be my friend, and I shall call my friend Kitty.

Anne wants to do more than write a story:

I
want to go further, I can't imagine having to live
like Mummy, Mrs. Van Daan, and all those women who
do their work and are later forgotten. I must have
something more than a husband and children, something
I can devote myself to. I want to live on after my
death.

Anne was to live on, not only thanks to her talent
or because of the feelings of indignation and guilt
which she evokes, but especially because she herself
is proof of the hope for a world which will bring the
end of oppression for all people.

On August 4th, 1944 when the Allies were nearing the
Dutch border, a German policeman entered the office
of Otto Frank and located the attic which had been
a hiding place for two years, with four Dutch accomplices.
It was clear from their purposeful behavior that betrayal
was involved. They demanded that the movable bookcase
placed before the staircase be pushed aside. While
the arrest took place, the five men looked around for
things they took a fancy to. In order to stash their
loot, they grabbed Mr.Frank's bag and emptied the contents
out on the floor. All that time the bag had been the
place where Anne had kept her diary. Her father had
accepted the responsibility for making sure that no
one would look in her notebooks, including himself.
Now they lay like worthless papers on the ground. Mr.
and Mrs. Frank, Margot and Anne, Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan,
Peter and Mr. Dussel were taken in a Black Maria to
the police station on Euterpestraat, together with
Mr. Koophuis and Mr. Kraler. A few days later the first
eight were transported to Westerbork, the transit camp
for Jews. They were in the last transport to Auschwitz
(September 2nd 1944). It has never been discovered
who the traitor was.

In late October, Anne and Margot were "selected" for
Bergen-Belsen. Mrs. Frank was killed by the hardships
of Auschwitz. Mr. Van Daan died in the gas chambers.
Peter was taken along by the SS when the concentration
camp had to be abandoned because of the approach of
the Russians. Mr. Dussel died in the concentration
camp of Neuengamme. Mrs. Van Daan died at Bergen-Belsen.
Only Mr. Frank lived to see the liberation of Auschwitz
by the Russian troops.

In Bergen-Belsen there was practically no food or
shelter for the prisoners. Nevertheless, during the
last months of the war, train loads full of SS victims
arrived in Bergen-Belsen nearly every day. Together
with people of all different nationalities, among them
many Russian prisoners of war, 30,000 Jews were killed.

What we know about Anne's last months is that in spite
of the cold the hunger and the misery, she continued
to be courageous and ready to help others. Both Anne
and Margot contacted typhus. When Margot died, Anne
could not go on any longer, and she died in March 1945.
Someone who was with her during her last days, recounts
that she died peacefully, with the feeling that no
evil had overcome her (cf. Schnabel, A Portrait in
Courage, p. 174).

Miep and Elly were not arrested. When the group had
been taken away, they were the only ones left behind.
Since Miep had an extra key, she was able to enter
the Annex, which the German police had locked behind
them. Five hours after the arrest, she and her husband,
together with Elly and the oldest shop assistant, went
back upstairs.

There they found all sorts of papers, books, photos
and so forth lying scattered on the floor. Under these
were various notebooks and loose sheets on which Anne
had written her diary. The first time they didn't dare
stay long, but a week later they returned to remove
the furniture, at which time all the remaining papers
were gathered up.

So it was that Anne's writings were preserved. Miep
decided not to read it; in her own words, she might
have been shocked by the text, which would have incriminated
her as well, had the Germans found it. She feared she
would have been forced to destroy the document. Unread,
it posed less danger.

When Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam in the summer
of 1945, Miep handed the papers over to him. Weeks
later, he began to type out part of the diary and to
translate it into German, with the idea of showing
it to his old mother, who had escaped to Switzerland.
Anne herself had already rewritten her diary once and
left out parts of the first text in the process. Mr.
Frank used this second, unfinished version as basis
for the manuscript, and added parts of Anne's first
diary, excluding certain sections wanting to guard
his wife's memory and Anne's modesty.

It was originally not Mr. Frank's intention to publish
the diary. A good friend was given the manuscript to
read, however, and passed it on to the Amsterdam historian
Jan Romein to read. He wrote about it in the daily
newspaper "Het Parool," in a moving article, "A
Child's Voice."

The Contact publishing company was willing to accept
the book for publication. On May 11th, 1944, Anne had
written in her diary:

In any case, I want to
publish a book entitled "The Annex" after
the war. Whether I shall succeed or not, I cannot say,
but my diary will be a great help.

The Diary
has gone through countless editions, been the source
of a play and movie and been translated into more than
fifty language. Nevertheless the authenticity of the
diary has been a bone of contention with neo-Nazi groups
and revisionists doubting the diary's genuineness.
This year, on the anniversary of the day Anne Frank
would have turned sixty, an authoritative, authenticated
edition of Anne Frank's diary was published.

Prepared by the Netherlands State Institute for War
Documentation, a comprehensive forensic study was prepared
proving once and for all the authenticity of the diary.
This documentation is included in the new, critical
edition along with the original diary, unabridged with
Otto Frank's revisions.

There have been many attempts to analyze Anne Frank's
development from child to woman based on the diary.
We neither need nor can add anything to that. But we
do want to consider how Anne experienced the events
taking place in the world and how she reacted to them.

On June 20th, 1942, even before going into hiding,
she wrote:

Anti-Jewish decrees followed each
other in quick succession. Jews must wear a yellow
star, Jews must hand in their bicycles, Jews are banned
from trams and are forbidden to drive. Jews must be
indoors by eight o'clock and cannot even sit in their
own gardens after that hour. Jews may not take part
in public sports. Jews may not visit Christians. Our
freedom was strictly limited. Yet things were bearable.

At the time, Anne was still going to a Jewish college-preparatory
school. All her attention was concentrated on the question:
Will I pass this year? But the day of the final exam,
was at the same time the last day of relative freedom
(July 5th). On Monday, July 6th, they moved into the
Annex. The Van Daan's came on July 13th. Much later,
on November 16th, Mr. Dussel joined them, making a
total of eight.

In the first two months, Anne wrote about everyday
matters, relationships, small fights and unavoidable
friction between people who are forced to live close
to each other for an indefinite length of time.

On October 9th, Anne looks further than her little
world:

Our many Jewish friends are being taken
away by the dozens. These people are treated by the
Gestapo without a shred of decency, being loaded into
cattle trucks and sent to Westerbork, the big Jewish
camp in Drente.

About forced labor in Germany and the fare of the
hostages:

Nice people, the Germans! To think
that I was once one of them too! No, Hitler took away
our nationality long ago. In fact, Germans and Jews
are the greatest enemies in the world.

In these months, Anne was especially concerned with
herself, with her attitude towards the others and towards
her mother in particular. She had already chosen for
complete independence:

I must become good through
my own efforts, without examples and without good advice.
Then later on I shall be all the stronger. Who besides
myself will ever read these letters? From whom but
myself shall I get comfort.

That is not to say that Anne was exclusively and continuously
concerned with herself. She made a choice for herself,
for independence from others, but for precisely this
reason she takes the outside world seriously.

Upon his arrival, Mr. Dussel brought bad news (November
19th):

Countless friends and acquaintances have
gone to a terrible fate. Nobody is spared, each and
all join in the march of death. And all because they
are Jews!

November 20th, 1942:

Must I keep thinking about
those other people, whatever I am doing? And if I want
to laugh about something, should I stop myself quickly
and feel ashamed that I am cheerful? Added to this
misery there is another, but of a purely personal kind;
and it pales into insignificance beside all the wretchedness
I've just told you about. Still, I can't refrain from
telling you that lately I have begun to feel deserted.
I am surrounded by too great a void.

Did Anne mean by this a lack of understanding on the
part of the adults? Or was she astounded by the unimaginable
brutality to which the Jews fell prey? At any rate,
she was concerned with what was happening to others,
and in her thoughts about this she felt lonely.

It was no doubt not always easy for the others to
live with Anne. There were painful moments when she
let her temper go and told the others exactly what
she thought of them. She herself said in her diary
on April 2nd, 1943:

They expect me to apologize:
but this is something I can't apologize for because
I spoke the truth and Mummy will have to know it sooner
or later anyway.

Just before that, she wrote
in response to her mother's question:

But I knew
that I couldn't have answered differently. It simply
wouldn't work.

This was how Anne saw through a fictitious world.
But that creates tensions. What she wrote on January
30th, 1943, shows how difficult this was for Anne:

They
mustn't know my despair. I can't let them see the wound
which they have caused. The whole day I hear nothing
else but that I am an insufferable baby, and although
I laugh about it and pretend not to take any notice,
I do mind. I've got the nature that has been given
to me and I'm sure it can't be bad.

Even though she stood alone, Anne did not shut herself
away in a dream world. On January 13th, 1943, she wrote:

And
as for us, we are fortunate. It is quite and safe here,
and we are, so to speak, living on capital. We are
even so selfish as to talk about 'after the war,' brighten
up at the thought of having new clothes and new shoes,
whereas we really ought to save every penny to help
other people, and save what is left from the wreckage
after the war.

And still she writes of other things, too (February
23rd, 1944):

When I looked outside right into
the depth of nature and God, then I was happy, really
happy. We miss so much here, so very much and for so
long now: I miss it too, just as you do. Like you,
I long for freedom and fresh air. Riches can all be
lost, but that happiness in your own heart can only
be veiled, and it will still bring you happiness again,
as long as you live.

With the entry dated April 11th, 1944, Anne finished
the first part of the diary. The second part was to
cover only three and a half months. It was not Anne's
intention to begin a new chapter. The story simply
continued about the fear of a police raid during Easter.
Also remarkable is Anne's fear that her diary will
disappear. In spite of this the tone of the second
part of the diary is more hopeful.

This is when Anne discovers in herself her love for
Peter. Although it becomes clear from the text that
Peter will disappoint her, this experience of love
is so deep that she can feel unreservedly happy. Of
course, she received more response from Peter than
from the others. In the long run, he was unable to
answer Anne's emotional and intellectual needs. One
could say that Anne fell in love with an ideal, a projection
of her own longings, which in those circumstances took
concrete form in Peter.

Perhaps it doesn't matter that Anne's Peter never
existed. July 15th, 1944:

I created an image
of him in my mind. I needed a living person to whom
I could pour out my heart; I wanted a friend who'd
help to put me on the right road. I achieved what I
wanted.

The most important thing is that thanks
to her relationship with Peter, Anne was able to experience
and acquire her stream of feelings and emotions, her
road to adulthood, her new insights into the others.

Amazement about herself, intense experience of the
forces within her, outspoken courage to be an individual
human being, all of this determined her attitude during
the last months of confinement, and stayed with her
after she had realized that she "had conquered
Peter instead of he conquering her" (July 15th.
1944).

Now he clings to me, and for the time
being, I don't see any way of shaking him off and putting
him on his own feet. When I realized that he could
not be a friend for my understanding, I thought I would
at least try to lift him up of his narrow mindedness
and make him do something with his youth.

The Franks were not orthodox Jews, but religion was
a fact of life for them. Anne states explicitly that
for her religion is something that keeps people on
the right path and which does not stem from fear. A
very real part of her Jewish inheritance is the question
of why the Jewish people suffer, and the manner in
which she poses this question: Tuesday, April 11th,
1944:

We have been pointedly reminded that we
are in hiding, that we are Jews in chains. We Jews
mustn't show our feelings, must be brave and strong,
must accept all the inconveniences and not grumbly.
Some time this terrible war will be over. Surely the
time will come when we are people again, and to just
Jews. Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made
us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed
us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that
has made us as we are, but it will be God too who will
raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering and
if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then
Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an
example. Who knows, it might even be our religion from
which the world and peoples learn good, and for that
reason and that reason only do we have to suffer now.
We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English,
or representatives of any country for that matter,
we will always remain Jews, but we want to, too.

In her letter of May 3rd, 1944, Anne recounts how
time and time again the discussions reach an impasse
at the doubt expressed in the questions:

What,
oh what is the point of the war? Why can't people live
together peacefully? Why are people so crazy

Anne does not claim to have an answer, but she doesn't
want to continue this doubtful questioning.

I
don't believe that the big men, the politicians and
the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no,
the little man is just as keen. There is an urge and
rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and
until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great
change, wars will be waged.

Sometime Anne doubts whether the Dutch people will
undergo such a metamorphosis. When liberation is approaching
in the summer of 1944, she is clearly more and more
worried about the growing anti-Semitism. News has penetrated
to the people in the Annex that even among the Resistance
fighters there is grumbling about the Jews. Anne is
astonished that the mistakes of individual Jews, who
apparently let their tongues run away with them in
the presence of the enemy, or under torture by the
Gestapo, might threaten all Jews.

When one hears this one naturally wonders why
we are carrying on with his long and difficult war?
We always hear that we're fighting together for freedom,
truth, and right! Is discord going to show itself while
we are still fighting, is the Jew once again worth
less than another? Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once
more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: "What
one Christian does is his own responsibility, what
one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews." I hope
one thing only, and that is that this hatred of Jews
will be a passing thing, that the Dutch will show what
they are after all, and that they will never falter
and lose their sense of right. For anti-Semitism is
unjust! And if this terrible threat should actually
come true, then the pitiful little collection of Jews
that remain will have to leave Holland. We, too, shall
have to move on again with our little bundles, and
leave this beautiful country, which offered us such
a warm welcome and which now turns its back on us.
I love Holland. I, who, having no native country, had
hoped that it might become my motherland, and I still
hope it will! (May 22nd, 1944)

On August 1st, 1944, Anne writes about her reputation
for being a "little bundle of contradictions." Actually,
she accepts the label, not so much because she is so
fond of contradicting but because this nickname touches
her own secret:

I know exactly how I'd like to
be, how I am too, inside. But, alas, I'm only like
that for myself.

It is her struggle to make the real Anne apparent
to others:

If I'm watched to that extent, I start
by getting snappy, then unhappy, and finally I twist
my heart around, so that the bad is on the outside
and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to
find a way of becoming what I would so like to be,
and what I could be, if there weren't any other people
living in the world.

The arrest takes place on August 4th. The incomplete
diary is left behind because the papers are regarded
as useless. Yet one of Anne's last entries, remains
as a shining legacy of her innocence and optimism:

It's
really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals,
because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry
out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything,
I still believe that people are really good at heart.
I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting
of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually
being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching
thunder, which will destroy us too. I feel the suffering
of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens,
I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty
too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return
again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for
perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to
carry them out. -- Yours, Anne